


my heart's an ashtray and i lost my mind

by lorilanda



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Developing Relationship, Fix-It, M/M, Post-デュラララ!!×２ 結 | Durarara!!x2 Ketsu, Smoking, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:54:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28287321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lorilanda/pseuds/lorilanda
Summary: izaya, smoking, yearning without missing.returning in thirteen steps. in which i turn smoking into a form of art and deconstruct what it means to miss somebody so much that you miss yourself.
Relationships: Heiwajima Shizuo & Orihara Izaya, Heiwajima Shizuo/Orihara Izaya (implied)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	my heart's an ashtray and i lost my mind

**Author's Note:**

> this started as some random lines, turned into a writing exercise to get out of burnout hell, and now it's one of my favorite fics that i've written recently. it's like that sometimes!
> 
> (don't tell anyone, but i stole the title from a cage the elephant song)

**i. a flat in shibuya, september 5th**

this isn't good for you, celty types when she finally visits him, three months in. you should stop while you still can.

izaya laughs, tips the cigarette against the ashtray and watches as it grows shorter and shorter. if he's lucky, it will burn his fingertips and he will feel something.

but what if i don't want to? he asks, all smile, no teeth. what if i do it to ruin myself.

is this about shizuo, celty asks.

not everything in life has to be about shizuo.

he ruined your body, so now you want to ruin it too. to regain control.

izaya's smile disappears.

  


**ii. a kitchen, july 28th**

by now you should have realized it, shizuo-kun, shinra says one evening over drinks and a shared kitchen table while celty is god knows where. that izaya-kun is your nemesis.

my nemesis? shizuo asks.

you can neither live with nor without him, isn't that right? even now, you still miss him.

shizuo tries to tell him that this isn’t true but in the end, his answer comes not in words but in the burn of glass shards in his palm. he tries to imagine that it’s izaya’s knives instead. he fails.

shinra is too polite to laugh, so he offers shizuo another glass instead.

  


**iii. shibuya, sometime between september and december**

the man had been a boy once and his favorite forms of self-torture haven’t changed much since then. once upon a time, he had told the universe i can’t love, because i love all humans equally - and hadn’t he felt very clever back then, hadn’t he still felt like he was on top of the world.

okay, said the universe. here’s a monster.

orihara izaya leans back, stares against the ceiling and laughs, laughs, laughs. the smoke that fills his lungs burns and stings, yes, and the pain makes him feel strangely alive, but isn’t it satisfying to recognize its smell. isn’t it a cruel way of reminding himself of the things he can have but never hold in his hands.

the man had been a boy once and his favorite forms of self-torture haven’t changed since then. sometime between september and december, he starts looking up apartments. sometime between september and december, he makes a phone call.

  


**iv. still shibuya, november 7th**

i’m going back, he tells celty from the safety of his wheelchair. not that he needs it these days, but it feels good to have some sense of stability. not now. eventually. what would this city become if i wasn’t there to watch over it?

a better place, maybe, she types. she got that cynicism from shinra, of course. he laughs and agrees and says why, aren’t you mean today, celty. 

speaking the truth isn’t being mean, she types. this city has never been good for you, and you have never been good for this city.

ah, but do you really have to speak it?

she turns away. fine, then. maybe you’ll do something good for the city after all. wonders still happen from time to time.

do they?

  


**v. ikebukuro, december 3rd**

he always quite liked december. he just didn’t think that it would come with pills this bitter to swallow.

shizu-chan.

izaya. 

who would have thought that we’d meet again in a place like this?

stop playing games. why are you here? why are you back here, when. when.

did you ever tell me to stay away?

yes.

well too bad, shizu-chan. devil’s smirk, a knife that spins around his fingers without any real intent to do damage. seems like i didn’t listen after all.

he wonders if words could do just as much damage as fists and blades, if he let them. he doesn’t doubt it. 

  


**vi. a bridge, january 16th**

shizuo is wearing a black coat, one that almost makes him disappear at this time of the day. he looks different. more somber than izaya remembers him, though that might just be the twisted expectations he keeps in place of a memory.

izaya takes a deep drag and lets smoke fill his lungs. it almost doesn’t hurt at this point and if he wasn’t so goddamn attached to it, he’d go and find another drug to waste himself on. good thing he’s standing right in front of one of them.

shizu-chan.

why are you still here. leave. shizuo takes a step closer to him and despite his words, he doesn’t look all that desperate. not all that ready to kill the man that tried to kill him first. 

you’ve changed, shizuo says, unexpectedly. izaya can’t see why and frankly, he doesn’t want to find out. he doesn’t want to change.

i’m still orihara izaya.

you’re smoking now.

so what? i can pick up new hobbies if i want.

it’s not good for you. it destroys your lungs. 

since when have you cared about what destroys me, shizuo?

shizuo, in all his unceremonious glory, turns around and leaves without saying another word, black coat and everything. izaya is left to stare at his back and wonder when he turned into someone who gets left behind.

  


**vii. a flat, february 3rd**

celty visits occasionally. shiki too, once izaya has proven that he still knows how to earn respect by selling information to the wrong people. within two months he has his old contacts back. within three, he makes the double the income he made before.

life could be worse. life could be heiwajima shizuo, stopping by to see if izaya‘s bones are still breakable. it’s never shizuo, though, and at some point izaya considers just breaking his goddamn fingers himself. it’s a poor substitute, but it’s a substitute nevertheless.

the fruit basket mocks him with the way it sits on his desk. namie placed it there when he left the house for a few steps, only a card courtesy that it was her in the first place.

if you’re gonna leave, do it now, it says in her elegant handwriting. we certainly won’t miss you. love, namie. 

izaya laughs hysterically and when he’s done, he burns the basket along with the card. his flat stenches like burnt fruit for two weeks.

  


**viii. ikebukuro, february 11th**

one day, heiwajima stands in front of izaya’s door and refuses to leave. he doesn’t break izaya’s bones.

izaya he says, like it’s a spell. i know you’re in there. let’s talk. 

izaya doesn’t want this. he doesn’t want shizuo’s voice to be used for something other than spitting insults at him. if shizuo becomes sensible izaya has to, too. 

once upon a time, orihara izaya made shizuo hate him so he can hate him in return. because otherwise, he would fall in love with him and that’s a possibility so scary that he doesn’t even consider it.

shizuo doesn’t hate him anymore.

he opens the goddamn door. he has already put his head under the guillotine, might as well pull the chord. don’t come in is the first thing he says, followed by: what happened to you wanting to break my bones?

i talked to shinra, shizuo says like it’s an explanation. it’s not, and izaya starts laughing hysterically.

that’s never a good idea, he says, clutching the doorway with one hand to stop himself from collapsing and his legs from shaking. the wheelchair still stands in a corner of the flat, but he’ll be damned if he uses it now.

alright then. don’t come in. but let’s talk.

  


**ix. ikebukuro, february 11th (part 2)**

what did you do while you weren’t in ikebukuro? shizuo asks.

i healed, izaya lies with flashed teeth. shizuo flinches. good. i started smoking, too.

that’s not healing.

i’m stunned by your gift of apprehension.

why did you start?

what, smoking?

yeah.

i already told you, shizuo. i can pick up new hobbies if i-

why did you really do it?

  


**x. ikebukuro, february 28th**

he doesn’t see shizuo for a while. streets pass by in silence and whenever izaya wanders them, he looks out to avoid everything familiar. it works, until a familiar face blocks his way.

izaya raises his eyebrows. shinra. what a coincidence.

i can’t believe it. celty wasn’t joking when she said that you were coming back.

how happy you sound. did you miss me?

shinra thinks. not really, no. i always knew you’d return, eventually. others did, though. 

izaya doesn’t believe that, but he humors him anyway. others, huh. like who? don’t say my sisters, i know those little devils had the time of their lives without someone to keep an eye on them.

shinra looks at him like he sees right through the web of lies izaya calls a truth. you really should pay shizuo-kun a visit sometime. he’d be happy.

a dry laugh. are you sure that monster wasn’t much happier in this city while i was gone? he certainly seemed like it.

shinra isn’t polite enough not to laugh. i’m sure he wasn’t happy, izaya-kun. i’m sure you weren’t either.

izaya isn’t nice enough to answer.

  


**xi. ikebukuro, march 2nd**

alright, izaya says. it feels like a déja-vu. let’s talk.

where’s that coming from?

one chance, shizu-chan. one chance, or i’ll throw another knife at you.

shizuo extinguishes his cigarette on the sidewalk and turns to him. are you so desperate to get your bones broken again?

izaya laughs instead of a response. i thought you didn’t want to break them anymore he thinks. let’s take a walk, shizuo. don’t mess it up again, you monster.

don’t mess it up, you say. shizuo stares at a car in the distance as if he’s going to crush it with his bare hands. he lights himself another cigarette. but in the end, it’s still you who calls me a monster. 

isn’t it the truth, though?

no, shizuo says. no, it isn’t. you know it’s not. 

izaya’s lips quirk up in a bitter smile. well then, shizuo. what else are you, if not a monster?

you could call me human for once.

human, huh? smoke fades from shizuo’s lips. izaya watches. maybe i will. let’s see.

they don’t talk about anything that happened. not when they excel so beautifully at denial, but they manage to hold a conversation for five minutes and ten and fifteen. no knives are thrown. izaya wants to break his bones less and less with every passing minute.

when he leaves, izaya turns around and plucks what’s left of the cigarette out of shizuo’s hands. i’ll take that with me, he says and before shizuo can disagree, he disappears around a corner.

he inhales smoke that burns his lungs and tries to imagine shizuo’s lips on the same cigarette. it’s nothing. but it’s a start.

  


**xii. close to an ashtray, sometime between march and june**

so why did you really start?

does it matter?

it does to me.

would you believe me if i told you that i did it because i missed somebody?

you haven’t missed anyone a day in your life.

izaya laughs a little too loud and puts out his cigarette. and that is your first mistake, shizuo, he says. you think too little of me.

shizuo doesn’t ask again. izaya is sure he can imagine the answer, anyway.

  


**xiii. ikebukuro, june 10th**

i could just leave again, izaya says. who would stop me? you?

maybe. shizuo inhales and exhales. who knows?

you wouldn’t stop me. you’d be glad if i was gone, let’s be honest. izaya smiles, all teeth. shizuo frowns, says you don’t know that.

oh? 

shizuo stares at him darkly. izaya laughs. don’t look at me like that. i’d have to take up smoking again, or i would miss you.

i didn’t think you were capable of missing someone.

izaya laughs and tips a cigarette that doesn’t belong to him against the ashtray. try me, shizuo.

**Author's Note:**

> say hi to me on [twitter!](twitter.com/neonlightism)


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